Nightmares and Other Thoughts

"In dreams we enter a world that is entirely our own." ~~Harry Potter's Aldus Dumbledore

Last night tricks and treats abounded and scary movies filled the schedule in theaters and on the television. Today is the day after - all Saints Day but I am thinking about the Eve - All Souls or Halloween.

When I was eleven a movie called 13 Ghosts came out right around Halloween. Back in the days before special effects had the sophistication they do now, this movie had a special marketing hook. Each person was given a viewer with two cellophane viewing panels - one red and the other blue. If you looked through the blue panel, you didn't see the ghosts. But, if you looked through the red panel the ghosts appeared.

I remember being too afraid to look through the red panel. I'd build up the courage to glance for a second through the red panel, gripping my friend's hand so tightly I stopped her circulation, and then I'd be right back to the safety of the ghost free film. As a child, my imagination was always on overdrive.

That same imagination serves me well today as a writer, but I'm still not given to going to horror movies or reading the really diabolical stories that are so popular. After all, I often find the reality of life troubling these days so why get wrapped up in fearful illusions made by others. The nightmares I have these days are the ones that well up from within my own being.

In dreams, I view nightmares as my psyche working to release anxieties that have built up during the day. I can't say I enjoy them but they no longer scare me. Instead I am grateful that there is a marvelous mechanism of the dreaming mind that allows my psyche to balance itself at night. And, often, once I analyze the nightmare, I find exactly what worry has been preying on my sense of peace. And once it is discovered, I can address it. No longer unconscious, its power wilts and withers away.

The season of fall is about letting go and releasing to prepare for going within to plant the seeds for the next spring. The harvest is almost complete, soon to be celebrated and enjoyed, but the turn to the darkness brings with it thoughts that still unnerve. The ancient Celts believed that the veil between the worlds was thinnest at the time of Samhain (All Hallows Eve) as the connection to the ancestors was at its highest.

“Practically, a besom [broom] is used at Samhain to sweep away the last of the autumn leaves; but its also used to ritually sweep out old energy and create space for the new.”~~author, Lisa Lister

I invite you this week to embrace your dreams, whether nightmares or not, and to consciously welcome the energy of the next season by using these last few weeks of autumn to release what no longer serves you. Work with your intuition and heightened connection to Divine love to align your energy with that of the natural cycles.

And try not to eat all the leftover candy.

With love,
 
Cathleen